One of the problems encountered when transporting a mass of articles such as bottles and the like is that it is necessary to feed the articles onto a conveyor so that they can be fed in a single row to a particular operating station such as a filling machine. In many instances, instead of feeding the bottles in a single row, it is desirable to feed them in more than one row such as is the situation when they are being fed to a case packer.
Normally, empty containers are removed from pallets and placed on an enlarged moving receiving table. These empty containers are then transported on the table to a receiving conveyor which has a much narrower path. As the articles are moved from the large mass, they proceed through a constriction which, in some instances, is a pair of converging side rails and in another situation, includes an curved corner spaced from a rail which turns at a right angle.
Oftentimes, as the bottles or articles are being moved from the wide mass of articles to the narrow flow of articles, they will become jammed between the opposing side walls preventing the flow onto the narrow conveyor.
In order to prevent such from happening, conveyor jogging mechanisms have been produced. One such jogging mechanism is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,707,216 which includes a reciprocating wall that is reciprocated back and forth in the direction of flow of the articles as the articles are being fed through the restriction and is also moved in a direction transverse to the back and forth motion. These two motions imparted to the articles as they flow through the converging walls as alleged in the above patent prevent the jamming of the bottles.
In U.S. Pat. No. 3,862,680, there is disclosed an article alignment apparatus wherein the mass of articles are fed between a pair of movable walls which are made up of a plurality of rotating wheels such as skate wheels. As the articles are moved between the walls, one wall is moved forward while the opposed wall is moved in the reverse direction. This particular device is hung over the conventional table upon which articles are moved.
Still another article handling device is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,236,625. In this particular device, a wall of freely rotatable rollers is moved back and forth in the direction of flow of the articles as well as shifted transverse to the direction of articles so as to prevent jamming of the articles between the wall of freely rotatable rollers and the fixed opposed walls.
Other types of feeding devices are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,315,880, 2,373,600, and 3,117,665.